In collaboration with V&A Learning we devised a summer
school that gave teachers unique access to the museum, and offered
opportunities for educators and practitioners to work collaboratively to share
ideas and experience. We invited
graduates Matt Raw (Ceramics & Glass), Bethan Durie (Visual Communication)
and Rory Waudby-Tolley and Zoe Payne (Animation) to lead studio-based workshops
at the V&A. Each practitioner drew connections between their work and the
museum collection or context. The project also included behind-the-scenes
visits to the museum’s archives and studios.

Day 1: Introductory activity and workshop with Matt
Raw

We began in the Plaster Courts of the museum. The group explored
three key themes that are often present in creative practice - process,
collaboration and risk - and considered
the challenges and benefits of addressing these themes in the classroom. Taking
the Plaster Courts as a starting point alongside these themes, the participants
worked in small groups to develop a short practical workshop to deliver to the
rest of the group as a way of testing out ideas and generating new ways to
respond to a collection. Following on from this, Matt led a session in the studio
alongside the museum’s huge ceramics collection. He selected prints from the
museum’s collection, with a particular focus on typography.

Day 2: Print archives and mono-printing with Bethan
Durie

The second day began with members of the learning team at the
museum outlining some of the online resources available for teachers. This led
to a productive discussion about the challenges teachers are currently facing,
and how museums and other institutions might best support them and their
students. Leading on from this, the group worked with printmaker Bethan Durie. The
group drew from a range of prints and drawings from the V&A collection paying
particular attention to line and pattern. They also spent time in the Japanese
galleries, collecting a range of forms, textures and compositions. After lunch,
the group experimented with mono-printing techniques using their drawings and
notes as a starting point. As the experiments dried, they were cut up and
collaged into new pieces that reflected their experience of the Japanese
gallery.

Day 3: Artist-in-residence visit and animation
workshop with Rory Waudby-Tolley and Zoe Payne

The last day of the project began with a behind-the-scenes visit
to the studio of V&A artist in residence Jamie Jenkinson. Then the group
worked with animators, Rory and Zoe, to create playful pieces inspired by the
Ceramics galleries. The session focused on how animation can be used to project
and imagine the ‘in-between’. Rory and Zoe were keen to explore and subvert
what can and can’t be seen in a museum in the present day.

Through a series of drawing activities, the group singled out
details, imagined spaces and bodies to interact with the ceramics, and wondered
how those objects might move. Large drawings became animated with ‘traces’ of
movement as lines were drawn, rubbed away, and redrawn. Sequential drawings
investigated objects from multiple viewpoints. Some brave participants even
enacted an object’s movement with their own bodies, whilst the others drew
them. In the afternoon the group used these drawings to make short animated
pieces. Rory and Zoe set up three workstations so that the teachers could
experiment with different ways to animate easily in the classroom: giving
static objects life with a praxinoscope, filming cut out shapes and replacement
techniques, and using a simple stop-motion app on ipads.

Project

Teachers' Studio

Workshop leaders

Matthew Raw

Bethan Durie

Rory Waudby-Tolley

Zoe Josephine Payne

Workshop participant

Teachers

Workshop partnership

V&A

Date

2015

"It’s been great! Bring it back next year with different artists!"Nicola Cummings, teacher and workshop participant

"I enjoyed having the time to spend creating, working alongside artists and sharing ideas and experiences with other teachers."Clare Hawkins, teacher and workshop participant

"I liked working on a complete process: drawing pots, acting out a pot’s movement then using the drawings to create an animation of the movement. This could only be achieved over a whole day!
"Martin Chandler, teacher and workshop participant

"I liked working in an inspirational space and meeting practitioners. "Jenny Wright, teacher and workshop participant

"The pace was just right – long enough time to achieve something and not feel
rushed. Loved working with the clay! Found the printmaking really inspiring! LOVED the animation. The three days were so brilliant. Thanks to you all.
"Jean Fiori, teacher and workshop participant